


Whole

by blackeyedblonde



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android death, Comfort Sex, Established Relationship, Finger Sucking, Fluff and Smut, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Intercrural Sex, Ken Doll Android Anatomy | Androids Have No Genitalia (Detroit: Become Human), Ken doll crotch, M/M, robot gore, temporary amputation, thigh fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:34:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22658635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde
Summary: Hank shakes his head, reaches under the covers and wraps his hand around the cool chassis on Connor’s thigh where his dermal layer has receded, touch warm but feather-light. He hopes Connor can feel all his intentions pooling there, like some strange osmosis where love passes between flesh and plastic.“Does it...hurt?” he asks.Suddenly, and without much warning, Connor begins trembling against Hank’s side. He makes a soft, wounded sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob that makes Hank’s arms prickle with goosebumps.“It did,” Connor rasps. “It did, Hank. It hurt so much.”
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 30
Kudos: 294





	Whole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Molias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molias/gifts).



> A commission for the wonderful Mo! Thanks so much for working with me and giving me the opportunity to flex my writerly muscles into new territory with this one 💖
> 
> This is definitely a mixed bag, lol. Connor kills another android out of self-defense and suffers some pretty gnarly damage on his right leg in the beginning (there is some slight body horror imagery afoot), but all the rest is basically tenderness and comfort sex stuff. Hank and Connor loving each other is the star feature, as always.

  
  
Hank can’t believe he’s on an actual fucking running pursuit through a warehouse in the old auto district. He _really_ can’t believe he’s pushing 56, Lieutenant ranking, needing two knee replacements and with onset arthritis in his left hip, chasing some fuckhead with a death wish like they just hopped headfirst into some shit from Grand Theft Auto.

He also can’t believe he’s still somehow keeping up.

Their suspect moves like he’s done this before, and with Connor hot on his heels but still somehow just out of reach Hank has to wonder if the guy’s an android. He’s too fast, too agile, and leaps between two catwalks in the time it takes them to traverse just one. Connor is about fifteen solid paces ahead and Hank hasn’t lost steam just yet, but when their perp swings over the railing and jumps about eighteen feet to the floor before landing as gracefully as a cat, Hank knows he’s fully out of his league.  
  
It’d be easy to let him run and call it a loss for the day, except the guy has stopped running altogether and parked it on the floor of the warehouse to fire booming rounds of what sounds like shotgun fire in their direction. Hank has just leaped up two steps when he hears the distinctive spray of buckshot clatter against the metal staircase he just passed.

Connor looks back over his shoulder, wild-eyed, LED pulsing red. Oh, he’s mad. He doesn’t usually get outrun by humans or other androids alike, and now his hands grip the railing hard enough that the steel bows and groans under his finger joints. 

“Don’t fucking do it,” Hank heaves, still trying to catch up. He thumbs the safety off his gun and takes cover behind a steel beam, trying to figure out a game plan on how they’re going to get out of this one.

Another shotgun blast fires too close for comfort. “If we don’t act now and detain the suspect there’s a 97.6% chance of him escaping and this turning into a high-speed chase through downtown Detroit,” Connor says. “He’s armed and dangerous, and not human.” 

“God damn it, Connor,” Hank wheezes, tipping his head back against the cold metal, wondering how long he can stall. “So we’ll flip on it—get me a quarter.”

“I don’t leave things like that up to chance,” Connor says promptly, and then takes aim with his gun and squeezes off a purposeful shot before swinging over the railing and disappearing out of sight.

 _“Connor!”_ Hank shouts, swearing a blue streak under his breath before he finally jumps from behind his cover and runs over to the catwalk Connor leapt from. 

The warehouse is massive, maybe bigger than Detroit’s old shopping mall, and they’ve already covered half a football field in the time it took Hank to scramble over for a look. Their perp has decided to run, blue thirium slowly gushing from a fresh wound in his shoulder, but Connor’s too close on his heels now for him to stop, turn, and fire off the shotgun again.

He winds up taking another shot to the ankle courtesy of Connor’s sharp aim and then trips, dropping like a sack of bricks and skidding across the concrete floor. The other android still somehow keeps a stony grip around the loaded rifle, and from that moment onward Hank watches as everything in his world dials down to slow motion while the contrast cranks up enough to make his eyes water.

 _Please let it be an old break action_ , he prays silently. _He’s out of shots. Let him be out of fucking shots_ —

Even wounded, the suspect isn’t giving up easily on his fight. From where he’s laying on the ground he takes swift aim and blows off another blast of shotgun fire that shakes Hank to his core. Connor saw it coming, tried to take preventative measures, and squeezed his trigger the same moment his rival engaged crossfire. 

Hank won’t know it until later, but a single bullet slams between the wayward android’s eyes the same moment Connor’s lower right leg explodes and splinters into a mangled mess of wires and plastic confetti.

He’d only been a fraction of a second too late.

Then everything is quiet—eerily so, except for the haggard wheeze of Hank’s winded breathing. His legs are on fire but he runs across the catwalk to the next set of rusty stairs and takes them two and three at a time all the way down to the ground level. His feet have only just touched the floor when they hear sirens blaring in the distance. 

Connor is laying on the cold cement with his gun still in hand, face turned to gaze at the android he just decommissioned. He doesn’t look angry, or sad; merely impassive to the untrained eye, save for the tiniest furrow of consternation between his brows that Hank quickly notices. The pool of thirium leaking from their perp is slowly creeping toward his left shoe. There’s not really much of a right shoe left to speak of.

“Who the _fuck_ in their right mind carries around a shotgun anymore?” Hank says, livid, kneeling heavily there at Connor’s side. “Damn it, Con. Shit. Jesus fucking Christ, are you okay?” 

He reaches down and Connor loosens his grip on his gun, then wraps both hands around Hank’s thick forearms as he steadily sits up. They both look down at what’s remaining of his lower leg, just a mess of singed wires and mesh hanging around the titanium alloy structure rod like flesh stripped off a bone. Most of the plastic had been blasted away as if it were nothing more than eggshell. A thirium flow tube similar to a human’s popliteal artery is thrashed and spurting out gushes of blue fluid, and Connor calmly reaches down and pinches off the end between two fingers.

“Hank,” he says, very calmly. “I want to go home.” 

The sirens hit a crescendo as squad cars pull up outside in the gravel lot; that’d be their backup arriving, then. Hank pulls Connor in to lean against his chest and squeezes his shoulder tightly, kissing the top of his head and breathing hard there for a moment. He doesn’t care if anybody sees.

“You’re hurt pretty bad, sweetheart,” he says, not wanting to look too closely at Connor’s leg again. “I don’t think we can go home right away.” 

Chris Miller leads a handful of other uniforms in and directs them to secure the immediate area while he makes a beeline for Hank and Connor. He looks between the decommissioned android and Connor’s leg a few times, expression quizzical, and then reaches up to palm the back of his neck. 

“Damn,” he says, letting out a low whistle. And then, sounding pressed, “Who’s going to file the paperwork on this?” 

“We will, _tomorrow_ ,” Hank says, slowly climbing to his knees. He gives Chris an urgent look and motions toward Connor. “Help me get him up, please, if you could. This is definitely more important to me right now.” 

Connor looks slightly unfocused even when he’s standing on his one good leg, which is still dented and dinged from the outer spray of shotgun fire. Blue thirium leaks steadily from the open tube hanging out of his chassis; Hank doesn’t quite remember how much he can lose before his system hits a critical deficit. 

“Guess we’re doing this the old fashioned way,” he says, and loops Connor’s arm around his neck and shoulder before he hoists him up into a bridal carry. He nods at Chris again, already on his way out of the warehouse with blue drops of android blood falling in a scattered dribble behind him. 

“I’ll deal with Fowler later,” Hank says over his shoulder. “You clean up here best you can. If anybody asks, we’re citing self-defense across the board. I’ll see about getting a copy of Connor’s visual sent over after we fix this mess.” 

It’s only when they’ve made it back to the Oldsmobile outside that Hank realizes Connor hasn’t spoken since he mentioned wanting to go home. Hank manages to get the passenger door open and bundles him inside, careful not to jar Connor’s bad leg too much. 

“You still with me, Con?” Hank asks, broad form leaning down there in the door frame. “I know it looks bad, but I’m gonna get you to a repair place as quick as I can. You just—you gotta tell me where to go, alright? Just tell me where to take you.” 

The ring of light at Connor’s temple flashes yellow and stutters white for a few seconds while he thinks. “There’s an android technician in a shop not too far from here, in the old warehouse behind the aquarium,” he says, voice pinched but peculiarly lacking urgency. “We can try there first.” 

Hank feels like he’s already got one foot on the gas pedal before his ass even lands in the driver’s seat. He fumbles his police light on where it’s mounted on the dash, squeals out of the lot and drives like hell toward the aquarium.   
  
  


* * * 

  
  
  
The owner of the shop in question is an android named Dolly, of all things. Hank doesn’t have time to ruminate too much on the irony, though he does eyeball the biocomponents and inner mechanisms hanging along the walls and stocked on shelves like surplus car parts while Dolly meticulously disconnects the mangled lower part of Connor’s leg at the knee joint.

“I don’t have a compatible part in stock to do a full repair on this right now,” Dolly tells Connor once his leg is severed in full. Her hair is a particularly vibrant color of purple and twisted into a knot on top of her head with an architect’s drafting pencil stuck through it. “I can overnight the pieces in from Chicago, but you’ll have to go home with a crown in the meantime if you don’t want to stay here with me tonight.” 

Connor looks around at the surrounding warehouse; it’s well-lit and clean, but the floors and walls are all cold concrete and the steel shelving units seem to go on forever. It lacks the warmth and comfort of a familiar place, not to mention the shrink-wrapped body parts laying around like itemized knick knacks. 

“I’d like to go home,” Connor says firmly. “So if we could continue with the temporary solution, that would be ideal.”

Hank watches as Dolly goes to dig around in her toolbox and comes back carrying something that looks a little bit like the paper lid hotel staff put on clean glasses to keep the dust out. Whatever it is, it seems to be made up of the same stuff as Connor’s chassis, because she tweaks a few wires in his thigh and then suddenly the open end of the wound is covered up and sealed off with white. 

Despite the seamless enough fit, the synth-skin on Connor’s chassis no longer melds down over the stump of his leg, mottled and glitching over the dings and small punctures on his upper thigh. Hank wants to touch it but keeps his hands to himself. It’s odd, thinking about wires and plastic and tubes constituting a _wound_ —but that’s exactly what this is.   
  
“That’s the best I can do for the time being,” Dolly says. She looks vaguely apologetic, offering Connor a thin smile as she helps him sit up on the workbench. “You may find using a crutch helpful if you don’t want to hop around on one leg. Can I lend you one until tomorrow?”

Connor mulls it over for a moment, LED flickering yellow again. “No, thank you,” he says, quietly. His blazer has opened up enough to expose his shoulder holster and gun at his side, but Dolly doesn’t seem phased by the sight. “That won’t be necessary,” he says, though his temple is white while he makes a digital transaction to her account. “We’ll be back as soon as the parts are delivered.” 

Instead of carrying Connor this time, Hank helps him off the table and waits for him to gather his bearings before they begin the slow walk back to the car, Hank’s broad hand pressing hard into Connor’s hip to keep him balanced. 

“Once you drop me off you can go back to work if you’d prefer to get a headstart on the paperwork, Hank,” Connor says grimly as he gazes out the window at the dreary afternoon. “I don’t want you in the Captain’s bad graces for falling behind on my account.” 

Hank snorts in disbelief as he drives. “Are you nuts?” he asks. “I’m not leaving you at home by yourself with half a leg and a round of buckshot rattling around in you like loose change. The paperwork can wait, Con—Jesus, you’re a whole lot more important to me than that. I’ll have words with Jeff on the phone and we’ll pick it back up tomorrow.” 

Connor lets out a listless kind of sigh even though he doesn’t breathe. His right temple is hidden from view and Hank is suddenly itching with the need to know what he’s thinking, but Connor is still turned to face out the window.

They’ve got a fifteen minute drive back home through downtown, so Hank picks up his phone with a weary sigh of his own and dials Fowler.

  
  
  
  
  


The evening passes in odd, stilted hours. Not entirely uncomfortable, but taut at the edges with things gone unsaid. Hank knows what he’s feeling, deep down, but Connor’s distance and strange quietude makes him feel...uneasy, and weirdly useless. Like his tongue is too thick for his mouth and all the words may fumble out of him like dropped marbles. 

Connor’s changed out of his work clothes into an old t-shirt and a pair of cloth shorts. The stump of his leg is there, stark white and uncanny where it rests against the couch while Connor stares ahead at the television without really watching it. Hank can tell because his eyes don’t ever move. 

At a quarter to ten, after another late call with Fowler and two aspirin to head off an oncoming headache, Hank lets Sumo out one last time for the night and then stands off to the side, thumbing at his beard while he watches Connor watch nothing.

“Think we ought to head to bed,” he says, turning to crack open the door so Sumo can slip back inside carrying the smell of cold night on his fur. “Let’s go, chief. You and me both.”

Connor looks up, blinks, and nods amiably enough. “Okay,” he says, and then waits for Hank to turn off the kitchen and living room lights before rising with some difficulty and making the cumbersome one-legged trek down the hall to their bedroom. He slides into bed and lets Hank pull the covers up over him, eyelids at half mast as the other side of the mattress dips and Hank settles in beside him.

When the light clicks off, there’s only the soft blue glow of the LED at Connor’s temple visible. Hank watches it cast on the headboard instead of closing his eyes, feeling something stir in his chest. He shifts under the sheets again, drawing his left heel up to press against his right knee like Rider’s hanged man. 

“You scared me back there, y’know,” he says abruptly into the darkness around them, throat working in place. “I...well. I don’t want to even think about what might’ve happened. It was a close call, Connor. Too close of a fuckin’ call.” 

There’s a rustle as Connor turns under the covers. Even if he can’t fully see his shadowed face except for that betraying ring of light, Hank knows they’re facing each other. 

“I’ve suffered worse impairments,” Connor says flatly. And then, with more feeling, “Imagine if I’d have let you go ahead before me, Hank. Do you think we’d be having this conversation right now?” 

Hank blinks, stomach jolting at the sudden thought. His mouth twists into an obstinate shape anyway. “Well, you _didn’t_ , and now look at the shit show you’ve gotten into with your leg,” he says. “Besides, he would’ve been long gone before I made it down to the first floor anyway—”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Connor says. His voice sounds strange again, wound as tightly as a metal coil. “At close range a blast like that would’ve...it would’ve.” He stops short, LED pulsing red, red, red. 

Hank closes his eyes against scarlet, wets his bottom lip and rasps, “Why are we sitting here passing hypotheticals back and forth when you’re the only thing I should be worrying about. Nothing else matters, Connor.” His voice is gruff, a gravelly sound somewhere in the back of his throat. “Do you hear me? I walked off a live crime scene and I’d do it again in a fucking heartbeat.” 

Quiet strings between them for a long, weighted moment. Hank reaches out, slowly, and gently presses the pad of his thumb over the ring of light at Connor’s temple to hide it from view. 

“Love you, kid,” he says. Saying it makes some of the pressure in his chest deflate as he sags with relief. “That’s all.”

“I know, Hank,” Connor tells him. The tip of his nose grazes the inside of Hank’s wrist, and then his mouth is there, too, pressing a soft kiss against the delicate tributary of veins. “I think we love each other too much for our own good.”

“Nah, never too much of a good thing,” Hank breathes out, smiling some in the dark. He moves his hand down to cup the side of Connor’s face, thumb swiping under his orbital socket now, and beneath the sheets he feels the cool plastic of Connor’s crowned leg nudge against his thigh.

He doesn’t jump, but he’d already forgotten in just a few minutes that most of Connor’s right leg is gone. Connor’s must’ve felt the most minute amount of stiffening in his body, because he quickly draws the stump away as if ashamed. 

Hank shakes his head, reaches under the covers and wraps his hand around the cool chassis on Connor’s thigh where his dermal layer has receded, touch warm but feather-light. He hopes Connor can feel all his intentions pooling there, like some strange osmosis where love passes between flesh and plastic.

“Does it...hurt?” he asks. 

Suddenly, and without much warning, Connor begins trembling against Hank’s side. He makes a soft, wounded sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob that makes Hank’s arms prickle with goosebumps. 

“It did,” Connor rasps. “It did, Hank. It hurt so much.”

Hank feels like he’s been sucker punched in the sternum when all the air in his lungs falters and stalls out. His eyes immediately burn and ache with phantom shame and horror because he’s such a fucking fool, he had no idea, he didn’t even think to _ask_ —

“I didn’t know, baby,” he says, dragging a hand up to Connor’s hip to try and pull him closer. “I’m sorry, Con. Shit, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Connor says through the dark as he folds himself into Hank’s arms, still shaking. When his face presses there into the crook of Hank’s neck it’s wet with saline, and that alone makes Hank’s heart feel like it’s rending in half. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to scare you more.”

“Fuck my feelings,” Hank grumbles as he cups the back of Connor’s head. “You should’ve told me. I wish I could’ve done something to help.” 

They’re practically chest to chest now, Connor’s left leg draped over Hank’s thighs to bring the lines of their bodies closer together. There’s relief in being wound together like this; Hank can’t ever put a finger on it, but they press into all the right spots of each other. He feels held together as much as he’s keeping Connor from falling apart.

“It doesn’t hurt as much now, after Dolly disconnected the wires,” Connor murmurs. Hank isn’t expecting the soft press of lips somewhere under his chin, but heat blooms there where Connor kissed him. “Only a little.” 

“Can I do anything?” Hank asks, even if it feels futile. He doesn’t know shit about how androids handle pain or how to help it. He only wants to be here for Connor, now, in whatever capacity he can. 

“This is—good,” Connor says, though his calf presses into the meat of Hank’s ass as he tries to slot their bodies flush together. He lets out a shuddering breath he doesn’t need, LED flickering marigold through the dark, and then asks for what he really wants, soft but sure. “Can I have your hand?”

Hank would cut it off with a dull blade if Connor so much as asked, but parts through the short hair at the nape of his neck and nods before threading their fingers together. “What do you want?” he murmurs. “Tell me.” 

In the end, showing seems easier than telling him, because Connor brings Hank’s fingers up to his mouth, letting the grooved pads rest there against the swell of his bottom lip. He seems to be waiting for permission, but Hank is already nodding. 

“Go ahead,” he rasps. “I’m right here.” 

Connor’s lips part and Hank makes the next move, willing and present, as he slips his first three fingers into the slick, simulated heat of Connor’s mouth. Without wasting any time Connor clamps down around them and gently pushes the flat of his tongue against the digits from underneath, and Hank knows without asking he can intimately sense every scar, whorl, and tiny imperfection on the surface of his skin.

And God, it shouldn’t turn him on like this, but it does. The gentle suction goes right to his pelvis, making balmy heat bloom there in some kind of fucked-up betrayal as his cock twitches with interest. This isn’t the first time Connor’s had Hank’s fingers in his mouth, and it certainly won’t be the last, but this time seems—different, somehow. Especially now that Hank’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness of their bedroom and he can watch Connor’s lashes flutter, the way his face seems to have smoothed out now that his troubles have temporarily lifted. 

Connor pulls Hank’s fingers deeper, then to the back of his throat up to the last knuckle. He moans, soft and low, and the vibration thrums through Hank’s hand. He swears low under his breath, cock hardening more by the second, and Connor’s eyes flicker open again when he feels stirring against his inner thigh.

He slowly draws off Hank’s fingers, leaving them slick and nearly dripping with analysis fluid, but nonetheless brings Hank’s soaked hand down to the flat plate between his legs. “Hank,” he rasps out, sounding broken. “I want to feel you here, too.” 

Hank thinks he may die before the night is finished, but cups his hand against the rounded mound there with love and reverence anyway, stroking the featureless synth-skin through Connor’s soft shorts with his wet fingers. 

“Okay, baby,” he says, leaning in to land a crooked kiss somewhere next to Connor’s eye. He draws in a deep breath, feeling his heart pound like a war drum in his chest. “Alright. You gotta turn over for me.”

Connor does without needing to be asked twice. Hank swears low under his breath and twists around to reach for the bedside table, taking out a familiar bottle and squirting a generous amount into his palm. He hooks a thumb into the waistband of his boxers and drags them down around his hips, then slicks up with a palmful of cold lube. 

It makes him shudder for more reasons than one, but Connor has already divested himself of his shorts and kicked them off somewhere under the sheets. Hank reaches for his thigh and presses his legs together to make a tighter fit, cock already butting against the sweet curve of Connor’s ass. It’s cumbersome and sticky, but he’s gentle with the capped stump of Connor’s right leg, holding it like something precious as he slowly fists his cockhead into the tight seam against the android’s smooth mound. 

And it is precious, Hank knows. Every part of Connor is, far beyond what he ever could’ve imagined in past lives come and gone. If only he’d known from the start.

“Hank,” Connor chokes out, pushing his ass back against Hank’s cock for more friction. The slide is divine, slick and invigorating every time Hank feels the head of his shaft pop from between the android’s strong thighs and hit cool air. He groans against the curve of Connor’s shoulder and feels fine fingers wrap around his hand again, drawing it back up to waiting lips. 

Connor sucks the lube and everything right off while Hank slowly fucks his thighs, tender and languid, letting wetness bead at the corners of his eyes as something builds deep in his chassis with every slide of Hank’s cock against his pelvic plate. Phantom electricity licks up his spine and Connor squeezes his thighs together tighter, moaning again while Hank pants and presses his fingers down harder, deep enough to nearly slip into the silicone sleeve of Connor’s humming throat. 

Behind him Hank keeps his pace steady, whispering sweet things behind Connor’s ear as he rolls his hips. On and on, just like that, easy and without hurry, the two of them bound and tethered to each other in a way neither would know how to describe with simple words.

If there’s any pain throbbing in Connor’s mangled thigh, he doesn’t feel it. Every bit of his processing power is honed in on the heat of Hank’s thick cock between his legs and the comforting weight of his fingers sealed tight in his mouth. It all crests and bleeds together into some surge of pleasure that makes him buck and shudder in Hank’s arms, and when he’s finally balancing on the ledge of whatever happens next he thinks of Hank inside him and all around him, of Hank both grounding him to this earth and carrying him out of that warehouse, and soft-reboots hard enough to go offline for half a second. Analysis fluid gushes out of his mouth and drips down Hank’s wrist as he comes, wet and obscene, while tears stream freely down his face and dampen the pillow.

“I’ve got you,” Hank is murmuring when Connor’s system comes back online, mindless and sounding vaguely broken himself. “I’ve got you, sweetheart, you’re alright, you’re okay.” His hips stutter and he buries his face against the back of Connor’s neck, nose pressing into the fine hair there as his balls tighten and he feels himself start to come undone, cock pulsing where it’s fucking shallowly there between Connor’s clamped thighs. 

“Fuck, Con,” Hank rasps, still rocking his hips as he slides through his own pearly spend. His hand slips from Connor’s mouth and he reaches down to press against Connor’s plate, hand sliding through jizz and spit as he rubs soothing circles against the smooth white plastic where Connor’s dermal layer has peeled away. Eventually, as he starts coming down, he moves his hand up to the crowned end of Connor’s injured leg and strokes along the edge, careful and reverent while they drowse. 

Connor’s not panting, but little surges of electricity jolt up the column of his spine from time to time in rippling aftershocks. Hank’s softening cock is still there between his thighs, analysis fluid drying tacky on his chin and at the corner of his mouth. He reaches up to wipe the back of his hand across his face, feeling utterly spent and wrung through. Connor doesn’t often experience the sensation of being hardly able to keep his eyes open, but tonight his body feels like it weighs ten thousand pounds.

Hank is there, kissing his shoulder before he pulls out from between Connor’s thighs and goes to wet a cloth in the bathroom. He comes back and slides into bed, kindly wiping around Connor’s face before he folds the cloth in half and tends to the mess between his legs. 

He sets the used rag aside and tucks back in close so they’re nearly nose to nose, draping a heavy arm around Connor’s waist. His jaw cracks with a wide yawn, whiskers tickling wherever they touch Connor’s skin. 

“You feeling okay?” he murmurs, fingers following the ridge of Connor’s spine like he’s counting notches on a totem. “Today was rough.”

“I feel much better,” Connor answers, because it’s true. He presses his hand somewhere in the middle of Hank’s chest so he can feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “Thank you, Hank. For...everything.” 

“Don’t thank me for doing what you need and deserve,” Hank rumbles, pressing their foreheads together. “I just want you to tell me when you’re in pain. No matter what, alright? I may not know what the hell I’m doing, but I need to know so we can try to fix it.” 

“Okay,” Connor whispers, and kisses Hank one last time before he slips into stasis. “Get some rest, my love.” 

His LED shifts away from blue and blinks white when he’s on standby, serene and calm at last. Hank watches the soft glow for a time as he drifts toward sleep himself, thinking only of how deeply grateful he is for Connor—here and safe in his arms.

Not quite in one piece, but still undeniably whole.   
  
  



End file.
